26 May 2021 – by Evelyn Workman
Germany’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the country’s current climate protection measures are insufficient to protect future generations. It said that current climate change measures “violate the freedoms of the complainants, some of whom are still very young” because much of the action needed to reach the Paris climate deal targets is delayed until after 2030.
Germany’s Climate Protection Act was approved by the government in 2019 and under it Germany is obliged to cut greenhouse gas emission by 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. However, the judges of the Constitutional Court have deemed the regulations insufficient. “The regulations irreversibly postpone high emission reduction burdens until periods after 2030,” the court said. The court added that this is unconstitutional, and criticised the current law because it does not go into enough detail on how emissions will be reduced after 2031.
The judges said the government now has until the end of next year to revise its Climate Protection Act and ensure that goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are more urgently met. The government was quick to respond to the ruling, with the finance minister, Olaf Scholz, and the environment minister, Svenja Schulze, having “resolved to very quickly prepare a draft bill to advise the federal government.” The bill will amend the current Climate Protection Act to ensure it complies with the requirements set out by the Constitutional Court. Scholz has stated that he expects the bill to receive the approval of the entire federal government.
The ruling backed complaints from mostly young climate change activists and environmental groups between 2018 and 2020. One of the complainants, Luisa Neubauer, an activist from Fridays for Future, welcomed the ruling, saying: “This is huge. Climate protection is not nice to have; climate protection is our basic right and that’s official now. This is a huge win for the climate movement, it changes a lot.”
